Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Smash and Gran

First they destabilise the finance industry, now they're smashing up Metros - is there no way to stop the OAP menace?

The results of a review of an incident in May involving an electric scooter, an octogenarian and a Metro train door by Metro safety inspectors have been reported today in the Gazette.

The inspectors reported that Mrs Dees, 80, had hit the Metro doors with an equivalent force "of a rhino ramming the door". Have we started to quantify impact force in units of rhino because of the dropping of metric measurements? I'm looking forward to the return of the double decker bus to measure height.

I'm not sure quite why such an apparently powerful vehicle requires a "bull-bar" style front bumper - perhaps to see off any rampaging elephants on the Jarrow savannah.

These electric carriages are unregulated and the only qualification needed to drive one is the cash to buy it. The one in the incident reported didn't even have brakes, presumably relying on the inertial resistance from the electric motor to stop. Then again, who needs brakes when you have a choice of handy crumple zones: Metro doors, someone's shins, a push-chair?

These things are everywhere. You can't walk down the shops without having to dodge these pavement dodgems, and I've even seen one on the access road to the Tyne Tunnel. Soon they'll be travelling in gangs terrorising poor hoodies. The police will need a special electric scooter force to bring these ruffians to justice. Just as soon as they've charged up.